How to make an exact copy of your hard drive?

Question

I'm upgrading my hard drive to a bigger one and I wanted to know if there was a way to copy the old one to the new one so I can just plug in the new one and it will be just like the old one but with more space

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yep - there are software out there that clone your old drive to your new one. Symantec Ghost is one. If you look and download Hiren's BootCD then when you boot off of that there are a few pieces of clone software. Otherwise just run ot the local shop and buy any hard drive cloning software.



They are fairly easy just make sure you select the right source and destination drive otherwise you will end up with two empty ones!!! :-)

Answer 2

Hmmm...

1.Without using any specialized software,If you have access to another PC, where you can set up both old and new drive as slaves, you could do a direct copy by setting up an active partition on the new drive and copying off the content of the old drive over.

(It's actually more complicated than that, but if you are familiar with the principle, then it's actually that straightforward.)



2.You could also create a drive image of the old disk and copy that over onto the new one.



3. You could set up the new drive as a new installation and use Mcrosoft's Files and Settings trasfer wizard...detailed instructions here:



http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/crawford_november12.mspx

Answer 3

Use Norton Ghost

Answer 4

if you dont feel like using programs, you can always buy an external harddrive and copy your files to that. and then copy them back to your new harddrive. simple and easy and no one gets hurt